Two Visitor-Contributed Projects That Worked

• By Alexandra Sastre
• August 5, 2008

Visitor participation is a key topic on this blog - why it’s important for museums, when it’s the right approach, and how it’s best implemented. But what about examples of engaging, dynamic projects that have successfully incorporated visitor contributed art?

We’ve spotlighted Art Gallery of Ontario’s In Your Face- The People’s Portrait Project but here are a few more creative takes on visitor participation:

• How We Are Now, at Tate Britain in partnership with Flickr, was the museum’s first-ever participatory exhibit. In 2006, the museum invited the public to contribute their photographs onto the exhibition’s flickr website, allowing amateur photographers an opportunity to be a part of the larger exhibition, How We Are, that showcased notable artists such as Lewis Carroll. Submissions in any of four themes — portrait, landscape, still life or documentary — gave a unique glimpse into contemporary British life.

• The Residents, Re-viewed, an exhibition curated by the MoMA in 2006, looked at the history of the elusive music and video artists The Residents and asked the public to submit animated short videos paired with one of the band’s eclectic “crimecast” recordings. Winners of this online community art project had their work displayed online at MoMA’s website, with all finalists’ work shown on The Resident’s MoMA Youtube page.

Viewing these creative and innovative examples can help inspire your next project. You can also check out Night Kitchen Interactive’s one-pagers on visitor-contribed projects we’ve helped pull together: SPI’s click!, The Art of Storytelling, and Franklin Remixed.

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